This from my twin, Fr Stephen Schultz of St Timothy parish in Chantilly, VA.
The Holy Trinity is our origin and our destiny, our beginning and our end. We are made for perfect love. In God’s perfect love, he will always forgive us because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. This should give us the greatest hope and trust in God. He will always forgive us, we just have to return to Him with our whole heart, confess our sins with sorry, and promise to amend our life. I could write a great deal about the Sacrament of Reconciliation and why it should be part of our life, not once in a while or almost never. But I’d like to write about something that keeps us from the Sacrament, keeps us from peace, and indeed keeps us from reconciliation with others. It is our own failure to forgive.
Do we have to forgive everyone who has every harmed us, betrayed us, disappointed us, or turned their on us? Yes. We say in the Our Father, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We ask the Father to make our forgiveness of others the condition of our forgiveness. Therefore, we have to forgive those who have wronged us.
What if it is someone from our past who we will never see again (before Heaven!) or someone who has gone before us to the Lord? What of someone who doesn’t want to be forgiven, someone who won’t apologize or repent? What if we think they don’t deserve forgiveness? We’re called to forgive as Christ forgives, even as Christ forgave
the soldiers who nailed him to the Cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34) If we don’t, we’re closed to the freedom and healing of God’s forgiveness for us.
Yet, we find it difficult to forgive! All of us can probably call to mind someone who we need to forgive. We think forgiveness is impossible because many of us don’t understand what forgiveness is. “I can’t forgive,” we say, because the feelings of hurt, disappointment, anger all return when we think about what has happened in the past. Goodness knows when those past wounds come to mind all the feelings can return as though it all is happening all over again. The fact is, our forgiveness doesn’t depend on our feelings. Forgiveness depends on our faith. What may seem impossible for us is possible through God.
Does healing seem impossible? Does reconciliation also seems impossible? It is possible with God. “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).
Forgiveness is a choice, an act of the will. Our choice to forgive with the grace of God removes the burden of grudges, resentment, and bitterness from us. It does more for us than it may do for anyone else, and though we should desire reconciliation with the one forgiven, even though they might not wish it, we can still make the choice to forgive.
Here’s how to forgive from the heart: Repent of being unforgiving, of harboring grudges, or holding that sin against someone. Put that person before the Cross of Christ and say, “I forgive you.” Say exactly what you are forgiving! “I forgive you for…” Say it all. Then, “I forgive you from my heart.” Turn to the Lord and say, “I ask you to forgive them, to grant them peace and healing, conversion of heart, and help them to be as holy as you made them to be.”
Forgiveness is the key that opens our heart to God’s mercy and healing. Be forgiving, and you will be forgiven.
Does the next Pope have an S.T.D.?
That is: a doctorate in sacred theology?
In 1995, the eminent canon-law professor Ed Peters wrote a piece for Homiletic and Pastoral Review about the need for bishops to set aside some young priests with academic ability, and get them enough advanced study so that they would be prepared in the future, if called, to serve the Church as bishops. At the time, Peters foresaw a “coming bishop crunch” in the U.S.: a lot of bishops reaching retirement age and perhaps a shortage of qualified priests possessing an advanced degree as required by canon law for a bishop.
Canon 378 lists several official requirements for bishops, and one is that he “hold a doctorate or at least a licentiate in sacred Scripture, theology or canon law, from an institute of higher studies approved by the Apostolic See, or at least be well versed in these disciplines.”
(In case the word “licentiate” is unfamiliar: it’s a graduate degree of lower rank than a doctorate, but it qualifies the holder to teach in a Catholic seminary awarding the bachelor’s in sacred theology.)
I thought about this topic the other day when I saw Sandro Magister’s column; it was a little chatty talk about some of the cardinals attracting interest as possible choices to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.
One of the names mentioned happens to be my local bishop, Cardinal O’Malley, and it always surprises me to see him on a list like that, since he doesn’t happen to hold either of those degrees. He does have a PhD, but it’s in Spanish and Portuguese literature. While I trust that he’s well versed in theology, I suspect that the cardinals are probably not going to elect anybody Pope unless he really fulfills the requirements with an earned degree in one of the sacred sciences named; and preferably at the doctoral level.
So I decided to make a little survey of the cardinal electors and see who studied what. For the sake of simplicity, I excluded about half the cardinals from my study population: those over 75 and those under 60 years of age, since I doubt that the cardinals will want to elect them.
Dr. Peters’ web site has a helpful table of the cardinal electors soon to choose a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, with links to biographies of the 118 current electors. Here’s a summary of who has earned a doctorate, and in what field; the lists are in descending order by age, and names marked with a star appear more than once.
Cardinals age 60-75 as of 2/17/13:
Doctorates in canon law
Romeo (IT)
Coccopalmerio (IT)
Monteiro de Castro (PT)
Cafarra (IT)
Brady (IE)
Grocholewski (PL)
Rai (LB)
Vallini (IT)
Bertello (IT)
Tauran (FR)
Versaldi (IT)
Sandri (AR)
Piacenza (IT)
Gracias (IN)
Filoni (IT)
Burke (US)
Harvey (US)
Erdö (HU)*
Doctorates in theology
Amato (IT)
Dziwisz (PL)
Hon (CN)
Wuerl (US)
Scola (IT)*
Irosa Savino (VZ)
Rodriguez-Maradiaga (HN)*
Calcagno (IT)
Sepe (IT)*
Cipriani Thorne (PE)*
Onaiyekau (NG)
Ouellet (CA)
Ricard (FR)
Schönborn (AT)
Alencherry (IN)
Cañizares Llovera (ES)
Collins (CA)
Braz de Aviz (BR)
Scherer (BR)
Koch (CH)
Erdö (HU)*
Doctorates in moral theology
O’Brien (US)
Rodriguez-Maradiaga (HN)*
Pengo (TZ)
Doctorates in Sacred Scripture
Monsengwo Pasinya (CG)
Betori (IT)
Turkson (GH)
Other fields:
Doctorates in philosophy
Scola (IT)*
Rodriguez-Maradiaga (HN)*
Bagnasco (IT)
Sepe (IT)*
Cipriani Thorne (PE)*
Filoni (IT)*
Barbarin (FR)
Miscellaneous
Pell (AU): Church history
O’Malley (US): Spanish literature
Rylko (PL): Social science
Nycz (PL): Catechetics
Dolan (US): Church history
Which cardinals have the most academic accomplishments? Well, it’s a little hard to say, since I’m leaving out the licentiates here. But within this limited survey, the top is Oscar Rodriguez-Maradiaga of Honduras, with doctorates in theology, moral theology, and philosophy, plus a diploma in clinical psychology and conservatory studies in piano! What a guy!
Perhaps the most unusual field one of the cardinals has studied is industrial engineering. Cdl. Cipriani was an engineer working for W.R. Grace before he entered priestly studies.
To summarize: of the 67 cardinals in this age range, 18 have doctorates in canon law; 21 in dogmatic theology; 3 in moral theology, 3 in Scripture.
And 24 do not have that top-level degree in one of the sacred sciences required by the canon — which really surprises me.
And the names of those outliers include some illustrious cardinals whom I would not mind seeing as Pope: George Pell (Australia), Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don (Sri Lanka).
[Welcome, readers from WDTPRS!]
Song For A Contemporary Nativity Set
Have yourself a minimalist Christmas
with a set of blocks
each a single color and an oblong box
Have yourself a geometric Christmas
It’s a tidy plan
As if they were painted like a Mondrian
Bet you knew
that our Lady’s blue
while Saint Joseph’s all in brown
Deeper shades from the Orient
tell you Magi are in town.
Soon it will be copied by IKEA
Yuletide can be blah:
Angels without mouths can’t sing a Gloria.
But have yourself a minimalist Christmas, brah.
On that night
Was our Savior white?
Was the shepherd grubby gray?
In that box
there’s no lamb or ox
but the Pope says that’s okay
If your kids see this on Christmas morning
sure they’re gonna cry
look at you in tears and ask you, Daddy, why?
So let’s just kiss this minimalist Christmas ‘bye
(A hat tip to Fr. Bryce Sibley for letting me know about this.)
Website for classic devotional hymns
My friend Peter Meggison has an interesting project going: he’s helping to keep old-fashioned Catholic devotional hymns alive by commissioning choral performances and recordings of these sentimental favorites. I’m putting together a web site for him at http://www.catholicdevotionalhymns.com/, so drop by and enjoy some of these charming old songs!
Parish Book of Psalms
Composer Arlene Oost-Zinner has been distributing her a cappella psalm settings for a few years through the Chabanel Psalms project, and this summer she has brought out a complete set of responsorial psalms for Sundays and solemnities, published by the Church Music Association of America.
View the Parish Book of Psalms at Scribd
By way of disclosure, I contributed to the book by doing some custom chant typesetting so I’m pleased with how the music looks. (The Scribd display above is not exactly what the page looks like, but it’s close.)
It’ll be available from Amazon shortly:
In CMAA’s spirit of sharing, free downloads of individual psalms are available online at http://musicasacra.com/pbp/.